Across the Tucson area, sightings of a masked man are being posted to social media. He has been seen clinging to walls, perching on ledges and walking around Target all while wearing the costume of a familiar copyrighted character.
These photos follow the artistic techniques of the “Patterson-Gimlin Film,” except the man in them is not a cryptid, but a costumed street performer following in the long line of “real-life superheroes.” While other RLSHs use original creations, Tucson Spider-Man uses the creations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
Tucson Spider-Man began patrolling the Dirty-T in January. His adventures have taken him across downtown, Vail, Rita Ranch and the University of Arizona. The desert heat has proven to be his arch enemy. He has recently ditched his original costume, spending $280 dollars on the materials to craft a superior more heat friendly version.
“Have you seen ‘Bad Santa?’ I’m getting close to that, where I’m going to put this suit on and I’m not going to like it,” Tucson Spider-Man said.
But he is following the path of his idol Peter Parker whose stories often end in great personal sacrifice. To Tucson Spider-Man, any sacrifice, be it physical toll or the loss of his free time was worth it to send a message; “Everything is going to be okay.”
Spider-Man met a photographer from the Daily Wildcat and myself at the Highland Avenue Parking Garage. As we ascended the stairs to meet him, Spider-Man — without any sort of prompting — climbed over the railing of the staircase and hung off of it for us to take photographs. Only the gloves of his costume, reinforced for extra grip and his ever so slight footing were preventing him from careening five stories down to the pavement.
But heights do not bother this web-head, not after he experienced the exposure therapy of riding intense roller coasters at age 6. In fact, he dreams of going higher, hoping to one day stand atop one of the “really, really, really tall” buildings downtown.
Unlike other masked men, such as Seattle’s Phoenix Jones who has made a career of very literal crime fighting, Tucson Spider-Man has no interest in involving himself in police business. When he started his escapades in Vail, people would crack jokes about the possibility of Spider-Man solving the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie. He was disgusted at the lack of respect shown towards a real life criminal investigation.
“That’s not a joke. That wasn’t funny. They should have known better,” Tucson Spider-Man said.
The closest Tucson Spider-Man has ever come to crime fighting is when he was driving in his car and saw a white man swinging an object at a paraplegic Black man at a bus stop. By his recounting, the white man was “definitely tweaking” and as he later found out had been accosting the man in the wheelchair with racial slurs. Without any time to change, he was still in full costume when he parked his car. Tucson Spider-Man arrived after the man had disappeared. He waited with the man in the wheelchair until his wife came out of the gas station and the couple got on the bus.
Afterwards, the white man returned and began to harass Tucson Spider-Man. Upon seeing a sharp object in the man’s hands, Tucson Spider-Man retreated to his car. Unlike his comic book inspiration, he has no radioactive superpowers and his suit is just for show.
As I interviewed Spider-Man in front of Old Main and the Communication building, students would continually interject to ask for photographs. A passerby in a Spider-Man t-shirt gave a look of confusion while others mimicked the character’s iconic web-shooter gesture with an accompanying “thwip.” One student remarked that he was the “friendly university Spider-Man.”
While strolling down the mall Spider-Man responded to calls of “save us” from The Pasifika Collective, the University of Arizona’s Pacific Islander club, who was hosting a fundraiser. He purchased a drink from them.
“It’s really cool to have a superhero as a customer,” Naomi Gray, a member of the Pasifika Collective, said. “Without Spider-Man we would have gone out of business,”
Not everywhere in Tucson is as happy to have Spider-Man around.
Park Place Mall security disapproved of two visits he made a few weeks back, with even the management office being unwelcoming of his presence. He later went to the Tucson Mall, hoping the security would be more relaxed and was kicked out in 10 minutes.
When he came across a child dressed as Miles Morales, he tried to enter a nearby Walmart to buy the child a toy. After being stopped by security at the front door demanding he take the mask off, he snuck in through the garden center and bought the present.
The opposition does not bother him.
“I really haven’t had a bad experience in this suit. 95% of the time I put this on, something good comes out of it” said Tucson Spider-Man.
Through his public social media he has been invited to public events like birthday parties. He does not take any payment for these appearances. To him, adorning the costume of Spider-Man binds him to follow the motto of “with great power, comes great responsibility.” He sees himself as following the legacy of Tobey Maguire, Josh Keaton, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland and Yuri Lowenthal before him.
Since Spider-Man’s suit covers the whole body, the character is not representative of any specific race, nationality, gender, sexuality or religion in the way that someone like Superman is specifically white and male, he argued.
He carries with him a deep love for the superhero genre. He talks respectfully of the immigrant narrative of Henry Cavill’s Superman. He discussed specific comic book storylines and referenced media like “Supaidāman.”
He plans to eventually leave Tucson and pursue his dream of becoming a film director, commanding his set in a hands-on auteur style. In preparation he has lined up a successor, to don his suit and mask and become the new Spider-Man of Tucson. His replacement would rather be Black Panther, but the character is non-negotiable.
“He’s going to do it whether he likes it or not. He has to. I don’t have anyone else,” Tucson Spider-Man said.
In the modern day and age it can seem like comic book supervillains seem more real than ever. Megalomaniacal billionaires like Green Goblin, scheming scientists like Doctor Octopus and ruthless dictators like Victor Von Doom are visible every time you turn on your phone. Luckily, as of the time of writing, Nazis made out of bees are still fictional.
Perhaps now it is time for comic book heroes to also come into reality.
“I feel grateful that every day I wake up, I still get messages on Facebook and Instagram that people in this city really do think I’m Spider-Man,” Tucson Spider-Man said. “I’m really spreading the message that hopefully, with everything going on right now, that everything is going to be okay. So even though it is a sacrifice, I’m doing my best to embrace it.”
